Someone bumped into him. Douglas stumbled and fell flat onto his back.
‘Aw, mate. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you,’ said the man. He leaned forward and reached out his arm. ‘Are you all right?’
Douglas begrudgingly accepted the man’s gloved hand and was pulled to his feet. ‘Fucking idiot,’ he said.
‘No need for that sort of language. I warned you to be careful.’
‘Be careful? You bumped into me. I could have … ow, what are you—’
Douglas looked into the eyes of the man who was squeezing his hand so tight he could have sworn he could feel his fingers break.
Despite what he told himself, Douglas was a physically weak man, and he couldn’t stop the man from forcefully grabbing his coat.
‘You are disgusting. A piece of fucking shit,’ said the stranger.
Douglas yelled out as the man turned him around and pushed him hard against a brick wall and let go. Douglas fell hard onto dirty syringes and makeshift crack pipes made from Coke cans. The man pulled a whimpering Douglas back up, turned him around and rammed his face into the black wall breaking his nose and his front teeth. His knees buckled and his face was dragged across the wall, scraping the skin from his cheek.
The man turned Douglas around and pushed his hand against Douglas’s broken nose. ‘Look at me,’ he demanded.
‘No,’ Douglas squeaked as the nerves in his face ignited. The man pushed his thumb and forefinger against Douglas’s right eye and prised it open.
Embers of recognition briefly dulled Douglas’s pain as the man who’d assaulted him let go and lowered his scarf. Douglas put his hand to his face, his fingers sticking to his bloodied and shredded skin.
‘I know you,’ Douglas said.
Before his trial started, Douglas’s barrister had told him that the jury would be watching his every move and that he should keep looking forward. He had done what he was told, he kept his gaze away from the jury, but he’d watched the courtroom and noticed who came in and out of the heavy wooden doors of Courtroom Seven. He knew this man.
‘You sicken me,’ the man said, unzipping his jacket and reaching into an inner pocket.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ Douglas cried, his tears mixing with his blood as they ran down his face, stinging his broken skin.
The man’s laugh echoed in the silent night. ‘Is that what you tell yourself?’
Douglas felt the air leave his body when he saw the blade of a knife catch the light. The man pushed him and he landed heavily on his stomach.
‘You’re a disgusting, wicked pervert,’ the man said, digging the knife into Douglas’s flesh. ‘You destroyed her. Your own daughter.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Douglas screamed out again as the man plunged the knife into his left calf, his back, his right buttock and his neck. He was soon silent and still.
The man looked down at his gloved hands and grimaced. Blood had seeped through the seams and his skin was sticking to the fake fur lining. He dropped to his knees and grabbed a fistful of Douglas’s thinning grey hair. The man held the blade against Douglas’s scalp and carefully ran the knife against the skin as though he was filleting a fish. When he was done, he placed the piece of scalp in a plastic bag that he’d removed from his pocket. He stood up, took hold of Douglas’s legs and dragged him to the water’s edge. Douglas’s body hit the dark, freezing canal waters with a dull and heavy splash. The man picked up the bloodied knife and dipped it into the water. He kept his eyes on the spot where Douglas’s body had landed. Once his knife was clean, he walked away satisfied that Douglas was at the bottom of the canal with the rest of the rubbish.
19
‘Is everything all right?’ Ramouter asked as they stopped at the wrought iron gates that blocked the public from entering the ironically named Greenwich Public Mortuary. ‘You just don’t seem like yourself.’
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Henley lied. She focused on entering the security code but could feel the strain from the lack of sleep pulling at the skin around her eyes. She’d lain restless beside a snoring Rob, replaying Ezra’s revelations about Rhimes like a record stuck on repeat in her head. She was now second guessing every interaction and trying to find double meaning in every word that Rhimes had said to her in the twelve months before he died. She was also performing mental gymnastics in order to justify her decision to keep Stanford and Eastwood in the dark. She’d written and deleted three text messages, explaining to them both what Eloise had asked her to do.I’ll them when I have evidenceis what she’d told herself, but her words sounded hollow and did nothing to erase her shame.
‘I’m sorry that I’m bringing you out here on a Saturday,’ Henley said. The hum from the axial fans in the refrigeration storage units drifted in the air as they walked towards the mortuary.
‘No, it’s fine. Ethan is on half term and Michelle has taken him to Bradford for a few days. All you’re doing is interrupting a day of me on the sofa eating crisps and waiting for Netflix to ask me if I’m still watching.’
Henley smiled. ‘Did they get there ok?’
‘Yeah, they did,’ Ramouter replied with a touch of sadness staining his voice. ‘The doctor put Michelle on a new medication. Memantine. It helps her to deal with the normal daily stuff. She’s doing so well that it’s easy to forget that she’s got dementia.’ Ramouter stopped, puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Sorry. It’s just that word “forget”. It has a heavier meaning now.’
‘You don’t have to carry all this weight on your own. You know we’re all here for you,’ said Henley, stopping outside the examination room. ‘And don’t punish yourself for worrying.’
‘Easier said than done,’ said Ramouter. ‘I keep telling myself that this is our new normal, but it’s anything but normal. I try and focus on what we have now and those happy moments we have as a family, watching Ethan play football or just me and Michelle watching an awful Christmas movie in the middle of October, but—’ Ramouter exhaled sharply. ‘Then I’ll catch Michelle standing in the middle of the bedroom and I’ll have all these questions running in my mind. Is she standing there because she’s having one of those moments that we all have? You’ve forgotten what you went into a room for. Or is it something more? Is her dementia advancing? Am I losing her already?’
